


That's not what friends are for

by Araibito



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, M/M, a sad fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2114130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araibito/pseuds/Araibito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leorio gets a phone call</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's not what friends are for

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a meme on Tumblr. You can't smile again

Leorio had just gotten off his last lecture of the day when his phone rang. He was dead tired - it was only 3 in the afternoon, but his first errand of the day had been at 7, and he was terrible with mornings. It was his fault for having gone to sleep at 01:00, but in his opinion, the adult world _was_ a bit unfairly stacked in favor of early risers.  
    The number on the screen wasn’t in the standard cell phone format, which kinda surprised him, though of course, landlines were still in use, the hospitals he’d interned at used them too… He raised the phone to his ear, and the person on the other end started talking before he managed even a greeting.  
    ”Hello, Leorio? Have I got the right number?”  
He stumbled on his feet a bit. It was Kurapika, sounding very business-like.  
"Hello?" The caller’s voice sounded the slightest bit warier when the answer was slow to come.  
"Yeah, it’s me."  
"Good. Are you at home?" _That’s all I get after months of unanswered calls?_  
"Not yet. I’m on my way, from the university." He grabbed his coat from the rack, and couldn’t stop his legs, they seemed to want to walk faster.  
"Good", Kurapika repeated, and allowed a small pause into the conversation. "I need you to stitch a wound for me."  
    ”You want me to do what?” Leorio stopped in the middle of the street and someone walked into him. While apologizing to the unfortunate woman, he tried to get his brain to work and to understand the situation.  
"You heard what I said, I’m not going to repeat it." His voice sounded uncomfortable only if you knew to look for it. "It’s nothing serious, so I don’t think it’ll be beyond your abilities. I’m in the phone booth near your apartment."  
Leorio wanted to say tauntingly that there was a hospital with professional doctors in town and why didn’t Kurapika go there, since medical help of all things _was not_ what friends were for, however close. But right now, he wasn’t at a distance at which he could’ve stopped his friend if he took his words seriously. So all he let out was a strained “Fine!”. Then he dropped the call and sprinted.  
  
    The blond was casually leaning against the booth, dressed in a t-shirt with a suit jacket on top, weirdly sloppy of him. He was looking at the sky, and only lowered his gaze when Leorio stopped next to him, a little out of breath.  
"You didn’t have to run", he said and stood upright. "Let’s go."  
"What the fuck do you mean, let’s go?" Leorio stood in his way and his voice rose. He opened his mouth to continue-  
"Not here." Kurapika kept his tone calm, if insistent, but he spoke louder than usual, and finally deigned to look Leorio in the eye. His face was pale but didn’t betray any distress.  
    ”Fine”, the beanpole said with frustration, but it wasn’t like he didn’t understand. Act normal for now. They walked to his apartment in silence.  
    “There are actual hospitals with actual professional doctors in…” he started while opening the door, but trailed off. Once safely inside, Kurapika let out a shallow sigh and slumped. His way of walking changed completely, from a efficient and confident stride to an uncomfortable limp that didn’t seem to originate from his legs, but somewhere on his torso.  
    While Leorio was stunned and could only make a small, unintentional squeak in the back of his throat, his friend walked to the kitchen-livingroom and sat down on the sofa, wiping a thin layer of sweat off his forehead.  
"I’m sorry for the inconvenience. You can start badmouthing me now, Leorio", he said in a tone that had a ghost of a smile in it.  
"—-I could’ve helped you if you were in pain!" Leorio rasped and kicked off his shoes on the way to the couch. "Where are you hurt?"  
"People are still searching for me in this town. That’s also why I didn’t go to the hospital. I needed to avoid attracting their attention, and they know I’ve been hurt." He opened the buttons on his jacket and revealed blood stains and a cut on the right side of the soft t-shirt, just below his ribcage. His face had a bit of hardness to it that hadn’t been there before, not this prominent, at least. Leorio turned his eyes back to the bloody stain.  
"Ok, take off your shirt. I’ll go clean my hands and get some stuff."  
  
    Leorio wasn’t sure whether he’d seen his friend shirtless before, but he was pretty sure that if he had, there hadn’t been all this toughness to him, then. Kurapika wasn’t the type to become muscular-looking, but he did give off the feeling of having put effort into his shape, when you could see it. Not in the taking-care-of-yourself way, of course - it was no doubt the result of joyless training and self-control he’d deemed important to his mission. His body looked high-strung.  
Leorio wished he could’ve hugged the tension out of him, but of course, even if that kind of thing worked, Kurapika wouldn’t have allowed it.  
The wound was pretty much as the victim himself had described it, not too bad, but it needed to be closed up. He had the him lay down on the sofa, and kneeled on the floor, himself.  
"I’ll clean the cut first, so that’ll hurt somewhat", he said.  
"Obviously", Kurapika replied, and didn’t comment on it further, just frowned through the process. He rested his eyes until Leorio had made sure the anesthetic he’d put in with a syringe had taken effect, and then watched with interest as the doctor-to-be put eight neat stitches on the wound with a small, curved needle.  
  
    ”Well, that’s that”, Leorio sighed after finishing the last knot, and slid to his back on the floor (it was a bit dirty, he should clean more frequently). “It’ll be around seven to ten days before those can be taken off, and you shouldn’t do much sports before the cut’s healed.”  
There was no answer, and after a period of silence, he asked, “How’d you get that, anyway?”  
He could feel the air tense up before he got up to look.  
"I’m sorry, Leorio. I shouldn’t have gotten you mixed up in this at all." Kurapika was already standing up, apparently fully intending to leave right away. "You don’t need to know, you’re better off not knowing about these circles. I could’ve found a different doctor, I just didn’t think a lot." He was picking up his clothes. "The least I can do is get off your back as soon as possible. I’ll pay you. How much would this cost at a hospital?"  
"Don’t you _DARE_!” Leorio exclaimed, and snatched the torn shirt and jacket from his friend’s hands. Kurapika flinched in surprise. “I don’t care that much if you don’t want to tell me the details, but don’t you _dare! **Don’t offer me money!**_ "  
Kurapika blinked at him - he didn’t have any contacts on right now, and his eyes were a dark brown, which looked odd on him after the grey he’d worn for so long. He was keeping his emotions in check, waiting for an explanation. Leorio breathed deep, because it pissed him off to be the only one throwing a fit and _caring_.  
"You can ask me to do things as a friend. Please, _ask_ me to do things for you! But I _will not_ take you as a _client!_ ”  
"Oh", Kurapika said. "Alright. Sorry." He looked at somewhere around Leorio’s shoulder.  
"You should stay here for the night, so I can check that things aren’t developing badly with your wound", the tall boy proposed, half making it up. Kurapika wouldn’t _not_ notice if the cut got infected.  
"Well, I suppose I could", the blond sighed, looking undecided, and most importantly, tired. "I can’t go back to the hotel, anyway."  
"Alright!" Leorio said cheerily. "Would you like some tea? Cocoa? Coffee?"  
"Uh, I don’t need anything."  
"Tea it is. Have you eaten? Since you’ve lost blood, you should take care of yourself."  
He went to the kitchen and started making sandwiches. A moment later, his guest joined him and put some water to boil.  
  
    Since Leorio insisted that the couch was too small to sleep on, and since he had a double bed and all, and since Kurapika didn’t want to waste energy on arguing, they ended up sleeping next to each other.  
    “…Kurapika”, Leorio started just as Kurapika had started to hope he wouldn’t be pressed to have more friendship talks. “I’m not asking for details, but have you finished your business with the people who gave you that wound? Are you staying in town? You’re not going to just go out tomorrow and fight them, are you?”  
Kurapika weighed his answer for a while. “No. I’ve finished my business.”  
"I’m glad", the sideburn man breathed with relief, and then, more sternly, "Don’t fight anybody else, either."  
"I probably won’t have to."  
He knew he was being withdrawn, and Leorio was hurt by it. But there was something so heavy in the air between them, and in his chest, that he couldn’t have talked in a normal, friendly manner if he’d tried. There was no way he could make himself enjoy friendship, with all this filth in his heart.  
"You never answer the phone when I call."  
"I know."  
He’d learned Leorio’s number by heart, looking at it on the screen of his phone without pressing “answer”. It was like the student had made a hobby of listening to the ringback tone.  
"Leorio, this doesn’t mean I’m going to start being in contact with you. I’m sorry."  
"…I figured as much."  
The old-looking man turned to his side, facing Kurapika, and put his hand on the blond’s head, fingers into his hair. He stroked the back of his head softly with his thumb.  
Kurapika thought about it for a while, and then sighed and closed his eyes. “Goodnight”, he said, and let his friend do as he pleased. He fell asleep with a hand in his hair, and when he later thought about it, he couldn’t recall the stroking having stopped.  
  
    When Leorio woke up, he was alone.  
He thought he must’ve gotten up quicker than on the day of his entrance exams, but the apartment was hopelessly empty, even on the second and third round paced through it. Even the bathroom was dark and dry.  
    There was a small piece of paper on the kitchen-livingroom table.  
"The wound’s looking alright.  
Thank you for everything.”  
It didn’t even have a signature on it. Leorio crumpled it in his hand and threw it on the floor, but not in the trash (it would spend three months under his couch). He wasn’t going to cry, goddammit.  
  
The world really was stacked in favor of morning persons.


End file.
